Language Matters | How the Chinese legend of pangolins came true – but in a terrible way
- Pangolins are said to travel all around the world underground in Chinese legend – this has come true, with pangolins the most trafficked mammals worldwide
- The greatest threat to the ‘scaly animal that bores through the mountain’ lies in the traditional Chinese medicine belief that their scales have medicinal value
Pangolins encompass eight species of the Manidae family, distributed across Africa and Asia, and are all adapted to an exclusive diet of ants and termites.
They have an armour of large geometric keratin scales covering the body and tail, powerful arms and claws to rip anthills and termite mounds open, and a long, sticky, insect-catching tongue.
The animal’s various names capture aspects of its form and behaviour.
The genus name Manis comes from the Latin manes meaning “ghost” or “spirit of the dead” in Roman mythology – alluding to the creature’s nocturnal lifestyle.
Its common name, pangolin, comes from the Malay pengguling (“one who rolls”), deriving from the noun-forming prefix peng- and guling (“to roll”), in reference to its habit of rolling itself up when threatened.
Originally referring to the Southeast Asian Manis javanica, the Sunda or Malayan pangolin, as noted in Dutch apothecary Albertus Seba’s 1734 Thesaurus, the name soon came to be used for all species.
